Egg just wished they could hang out. How fun would it be to have Jess there now? Strolling the streets, just the two of them, laughing and chatting about everything from the quirks of the people around them to life to boys (that gave her a little thrill; she really wanted to know what Jess knew about boys) to jewelry to Jessica’s colorful, interesting world, to all the amazing things Jess had seen and done and the future to come.
One day, Egg thought. When this is all over.
What a great day that would be.
**
Jess dozed fitfully in the dark, gloomy cell. Jags of harsh lightning woke her now and again with a start—not that the hard, cold, concrete surfaces of the empty block room would’ve allowed real sleep. Not that the circumstances would. She’d gone straight into the heart of Hell, been captured and left to rot.
But she wasn’t dead.
Between nods, in each instant of exhaustion, right before her head jerked alert, she saw flashes of the dream. Snapshots of images that were, at last, more like an actual dream than the haunting reality that had plagued her. In these dreams she kissed not the tall Kel warrior but Zac. Kissed him in the rain, the whole rest of the setting the same, only Zac’s face taking the place of the other. It was him and he kept flashing in her mind’s eye, yanking her awake, making her more and more stricken with grief as the heavy emotions of the half-dream pulled her deeper into its web. So far gone, so infinitely lost that there was no glimmer of hope, no possible way she was ever coming back.
She forced herself alert. Pushed aside the crushing reflections and made herself look around.
Oddly no one had taken her armor, or her sword. The beasts hadn’t killed her, hadn’t really hurt her much once she succumbed, giving herself over to whatever was about to happen. It felt strangely empowering, in a way, to cease trying and allow herself to be fully the effect of whatever they did. To let herself be completely at their mercy, the dangerous half-humans; to the point she did not even move, simply let them subdue, lift and take her, limbs flopping as they positioned and held her, part carrying, part dragging at times, not being careful but neither trying to harm. Clumsy eagerness was more like it, and as they dragged her through the streets, through the pouring rain, she receded within herself. Would she let them rape her? She doubted that was their intent. Would she let them cut her? Begin to eat her? At what point would she come alive and fight back? She didn’t know. All she knew was that, despite any outward appearances, she was, somehow, still on that plane. Despite being in their clutches she was in control. Could feel it. Above everything that was happening—though completely giving herself over to their desires—she was not in danger.
It was a strange sort of detachment.
And so they wound their way among the ruins, her eyes open and splattering with rain. She barely blinked, appearing in a trance, she was sure, seeing all. The city, the path they took. At some point, listening to their slavering grunts and occasional roars, skin no longer crawling with their touch, their stench or their sounds, she wondered if they had much of any intelligence at all. How was this shunned, quarantined society divided? From everything she’d heard their leader, Arclyss, was a masterful warrior, certainly as clever as any man. Could he be the only one? Was this his mutant army?
Eventually they brought her to the cell where she now waited. How much time had passed?
Aching a little she pushed herself all the way up, stiff, sitting straight with her back against the wall. She stretched her legs straight before her. The sword and sheath lay on the floor nearby. It was a small room, about as big as her bedroom back home, a single barred window in one of the corners. The door appeared made of steel. This was probably an actual prison cell back at the time of its original construction.
Outside the rain seemed to be easing.
Then a knock at the door. It opened before she could respond.
Instantly on edge she reached and took the sword in one hand and stood fluidly, and as she reached her full height a hunched old lady entered the room. Alone. It was a human lady, wearing a plain brown robe, disfigured as all the rest, small and seemingly benign, clearly not the jailors come to take her for execution.
Cautiously the haggard looking woman stepped all the way inside and smiled. An unexpected, genuine gesture that all at once made her look less feeble. Like she had some life in her. Jess returned the smile, uncertainly, but hoped it would be taken to be just as genuine, and after they stood there for what became an uncomfortable length of time, doing nothing but smiling at each other, Jess decided to break the spell.
“Hello.” Tentatively she raised the palm of one hand. Ridiculous images hedged in; of the creepy old lady, seemingly frail and old, suddenly dropping to all fours and crawling up the walls like a human spider, hissing and flicking a snake tongue.
I’ve watched way too many scary movies.
Nervously Jess lowered her hand and put it back on the sword.
But this old lady was no monster. Neither was she really an old lady, in the strictest sense. Human, yes, disfigured like the rest; a mutant, perhaps, or maybe just a long-term evolution of what was once human, generations of some sort of disease or exposure. Her condition wasn’t supernatural. Like all the rest the old lady could be explained. Jess studied her closer. She wore a dark brown robe made of rough fabric, hood thrown back to expose all of her gnarled head. She had some hair; almost as much on her face as on her scalp. Her back was severely hunched.
And she was exuding such friendliness. Overly so, continuing to smile through all of Jessica’s nervous movements, and it served to convince her the old lady would not, in fact, harm her.
“I’m Jessica,” she said, unsure what else to say. Unsure what to do next.
It got things moving. The lady, still smiling, waved her to follow, turned and went back out the door. Jess locked the sheath and sword to the back of the armor and took up pace behind.
The old lady led them from the prison cell and those areas. No one else came, no one closed the door behind them. Soon it was out of sight. Slowly they went, down corridors, passing an occasional window that showed the gloom and decay without. The sky was leaden but the rain had stopped.
Eventually they reached their destination.
It was a larger room, and inside was empty save a long wooden table, rough cut and slightly uneven—making Jess think these mutants must’ve crafted it. Definitely not a remnant from the past. Not from the advanced civilization that built this city. There were similarly rugged wooden chairs around it, overall the room musty but clean, cabinets on one side and a door leading off to another. High windows let in ample light. Now that there was a bigger view of the sky Jess noticed the cloud cover was clearing.
It might even turn out to be a pretty day.
The lady extended a hand to one of the chairs. Jess brought her attention back to the room and took a seat. The lady sat in a chair at the head of the table and continued to admire her with that same, loving smile.
Were they going to eat her after all? A wave of terror washed through her and she shook it away. The lady was looking at her with such intense admiration. It was pouring off of her. Did she absolutely love it that Jess was there? Or would she love to sink her teeth into her? On her wrinkled, malformed human face it could’ve been either.
Jess tried to focus on her eyes. The pupils covered almost the whole eye, eclipsing most of the white; black in black. That alone added to the sense of the monstrous. Jess wondered how well the lady could see. So far it seemed she could see fine.
But her eyes reflected no mal intent.
A new person entered the room, coming from the open side door. A disfigured man in a brown robe like the woman, carrying a metal tray. On the tray were off-white cups and a pot, and as he got closer and set the tray on the table Jess saw the cups and pot were like porcelain. The pot was filled with a steaming brown liquid which she assumed must be something like tea. The man picked it up and filled the cups, carefully, handed one to the old l
ady and one to Jessica, then withdrew with a polite bow.
Ok, she thought. Well, I guess I’m definitely not going to be eaten. This was clearly hospitality. Not only that, if they meant to fatten her up this small glass of hot tea wasn’t going to do it.
Was it poison?
She watched as the old lady, still smiling, lifted her cup and took a drink, encouraging Jess to do the same.
Dismissing those thoughts she took the hot cup in hand and brought it slowly to her lips and blew. At worst maybe it would give her the runs. At best maybe it would taste good.
From the smell that probably wasn’t the case.
She tried not to wrinkle her nose as she took a sip, swallowing the hot liquid with great care. She blew and took another then set the cup down.
What was the point of all this?
Suddenly other possibilities, equally troubling, entered her mind. What if they merely intended to make her a guest? Just have her live there with them in that awful place? Did the mutants mean to keep her? Like a pet or something?
She had to keep things moving.
“Arclyss,” she said. “I need to see him.”
She had no way to describe him. Knew nothing about him she could relay with sign language. Not how tall, not what he looked like, nothing. She could only hope they would understand her words.
“Arclyss?” she enunciated.
Then an idea.
Oops. Jess worried that might not have been a good idea.
“That won’t work,” a deep voice said from the entry door, back across the room. Jess whirled …
And recoiled.
“Not with her,” the tall, dark figure standing in the doorway finished in his strong baritone. Then asked: “I trust you speak this tongue?”
The man was speaking Kel.
Jess steadied her voice. “I do.”
Arclyss.
It had to be.
“Few of them speak at all,” he indicated the old woman. “None with the mind.”
Arclyss was a giant. He came toward her.
Not ten feet tall or anything like that, but easily over seven, maybe even close to eight. Broad shoulders—even for that height—large, perfectly proportioned features … these only enhanced the illusion.
At first glance he appeared a titan of a man.
And he was a man. More human than the others, at least in structure. He wore a white tunic of some sort, bearing images of golden faces, edged with gold piping, legs and arms bare. Muscular limbs, chest, physique, head and face—all were nearly god-like in their perfection. Super human. Like a living Greek statue.
A comparison which continued. For his skin was also that of a statue. Black beyond any human skin, like dark marble but clearly alive. Smooth, ebony, uniformly hairless and unblemished. She found herself rising from her chair to face him. Not that that did much to correct the discrepancy in height.
He was huge.
All she could think of was a pharaoh. Like some ancient depiction come to life. The familiarity of that connection, the odd certainty of it, snapped to mind and locked firmly in place. He wore gold chains round neck, wrists and ankles, big bare feet padding across the floor with a surprisingly cat-like gait. He stopped and looked down on her. His jaw was chiseled, his whole visage; jet-black skin impossibly smooth, not a sign of hair anywhere; not on his head, his face—nowhere.
Hard to think of him as one of these mutants, exceptional as he was. Where the others were mutated in the direction of loss of beauty, loss of function, aesthetic and even size, Arclyss was twisted in the other direction. A beautiful, ebon giant of a man who exuded sheer perfection.
“I am Arclyss,” he confirmed it. Even his voice was perfect, rich and deep.
“I’m Jessica,” she shifted uneasily. Still, so far this wasn’t going horribly. They were talking and she hadn’t totally freaked out.
“We knew you once by a different name,” he said, startling her weak calm. “We expected you would come.”
Knew me once?
Of course her first reaction was to ask, but she didn’t. She was getting so used to people expecting her, or knowing about her, or connecting her to a prophecy and all else …
She let it go.
“I’m sorry for killing your people,” she offered.
Arclyss nodded. “The Forgotten are used to war. To death. It is, sadly, the greater part of our existence.” He did look a little sad as he said this, and Jess felt a certain empathy for him. He moved on. “We are heartened to see you.”
“I needed to find you,” she blurted, warming to him faster than seemed reasonable; pulled into the powerful aura of this god-like man. Like a storm, rushing suddenly with a surge of the momentous, grateful he was there and that he seemed an ally as Galfar expected.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said honestly, mind in high gear, thoughts flowing into words. “You, this place … these are just the latest points on a journey I’m not sure will ever end. Along the way I’ve been told things. Lots of things. I came here because everyone thinks I’m supposed to save the world, and maybe I am. Maybe you can help. I’m supposed to find and bring back the means to our future. Only I don’t see how that can be. Somehow all I manage to do is keep barely saving myself. How am I supposed to figure out how to save us all? I’m not even sure what I’m looking for.” She made herself stop.
Arclyss studied her a moment. Then laughed. A rich laugh to go with his rich voice, unexpected, tremendously genuine, gentle, and Jess warmed further to him. She shared a nervous chuckle.
Then he was done laughing and was smiling. Perfect, straight white teeth in a fiercely handsome face. A large, jet-black face, perfectly proportioned in all ways, the same as all of him; inhumanly big to go with an inhuman man.
And he needed help. She saw it as if an epiphany. In his eyes, big and brown, searching hers. She remembered the yellowness of her own eyes and wondered what he thought of that. There was a certain relief in his. In his expression. He was relieved she was there. They needed help. Every one of them, human and mutant alike. Not just Arclyss and the Scourge. Everyone needed help.
Her help.
“Don’t worry,” he spoke to the overwhelm he sensed within her. These were, after all, incredible expectations. Right then she felt smaller than she ever had. Here she was, a five-foot-three, sixteen-year-old girl, not much over a hundred pounds last time she checked, and here was a giant of a man who could palm her head in one hand and probably crush it and just what the hell was she supposed to do to save him … let alone a billion others?
“You’ve made it here,” he said. “For now that is enough.”
His gaze lingered on hers; easy, confident, filling her, curiously, with a confidence of her own.
Perhaps he was right.
“Your struggle comes from the fact that you do not yet realize who you are,” he said, as if making note of the obvious. “But that will be cleared up soon enough.” He turned to the door. “For I do.”
And he was heading from the room. It took Jess a second to regroup. The sheer magnitude of those simple words hung in the air and he was leaving. She gave a polite bow to the old lady, excused herself and hurried after. Arclyss’ strides were long, naturally, and as he made a terrific but casual pace she found herself having to periodically jog to match him. He made no notice either of his own speed or her efforts to keep up, talking easily as he went.
“Surely you came here expecting me to be a demon,” he kept to the corridors, leading them further inward. “A bitter ruler, angry at a world that keeps him locked in. A world that has forever damned, forever cursed his people.”
She hurried alongside, feeling like a child trying to keep up with her father in the grocery store. She resisted the impulse to take hi
s hand.
“I did,” she agreed. “But I hoped, behind that myth, lived a man like any other. It was suggested I seek you out. I had no choice. According to what I know I need your help, demon or not.”
He seemed to lapse into a pensive moment. “I have been alive a long time,” he said. “Not so long that I remember all the way back, but stories were passed to me by those who lived then. Those who knew of the survivors of the great burning, the holocausts that swept our world. For a time I slept … though I know not how long. No records were kept. When I woke things were different.”
She found herself intrigued. How old could he be?
Could he be ancient?
Could he be one of the ancients?
This opened up a whole new line of interest. Was he maybe not a mutant at all? Was his past something else altogether? And why did he remain so hauntingly familiar? She debated asking a few of these things, to explore her curious suspicions, but his thoughts were in motion.
“We want only the same as all the others,” he declared. “In that we are no different. They see us as different but we are not. Not in ways that matter.”
She took a few more running steps then went back to a stiff walk, assuming he was talking of the Brotherhood and the rest of the world.
“Unlike them I see the greater good,” he said with a not-so-subtle hint of disdain. “They grow fat and complacent. You come here alone because they would be fine if you simply fail.”
Similar sentiments shared by Galfar, Jess thought. She continued to appreciate how right the old man had been. So far Arclyss was proving as expected. But where was he taking her? Was it really where she needed to go?
And what did he mean when he said he knew who she was?
That was the question she most wanted to ask.
He turned them along an interior corridor and down steps to a large underground station, similar to the one where she was captured earlier but much bigger. Like this city’s version of Grand Central. There were no more windows down here but light came from controlled fires scattered about the place. Soon they saw the first other people, mutants in the shadows, cowing at their passage as Arclyss led her across the vast platform.
Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4) Page 50
